United States A Threat Under Trump, EU President Says

The new administration has made some "worrying declarations," according to the EU president.

Sean Gallup/Getty ImagesPolish President Donald Tusk speaks at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany on April 25, 2014.

The ascension of President Donald Trump to the highest rungs of American power has set off alarm bells in Europe.

Now, European Council President Donald Tusk has written a letter to 27 European leaders stating that Trump’s “worrying declarations” are creating problems for the continent.

Tusk said that the recent changes in Washington have left the EU in a “difficult situation” as it called “into question the last 70 years of American foreign policy.”

According to Tusk, Europe’s external threats now include “worrying declarations by the new American administration,” China and Russia pushing their way to power, and radical Islam. Tusk added that he believed that most of EU leaders agreed with him.

He concluded: “We cannot surrender to those who want to weaken or invalidate the Transatlantic bond, without which global order and peace cannot survive. We should remind our American friends of their own motto: United we stand, divided we fall.”

Trump, for his part, has publicly called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a cornerstone of that transatlantic bond, “obsolete,” heaped praise upon Russia’s authoritarian leader Vladimir Putin, supported Brexit to the point of calling himself a “Mr. Brexit,” denounced German Chancellor Angela Merkel for accepting refugees, and dismissed the EU as “basically a vehicle for Germany.”

During his inauguration speech, Trump also pointed fingers at foreign entities for “stealing our companies and destroying our jobs,” adding that, “Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength.”

This was followed by Trump’s expected U.S. ambassador to the EU, Ted Malloch, telling the BBC that he anticipated that the Euro would collapse within 18 months.

In Tusk’s view, the EU is under pressure from all sides. And now it cannot even be sure of its biggest ally as well.

As Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel tweeted this past Tuesday, according to the BBC, the U.S. “would be making a mistake if it turned its back on Europe.”